The bicycle weighs just 19 pounds, but it took 350 hours to make. Del Norte Triplicate / Bryant Anderson

The museum
exhibit blends Carter’s love of bicycling and craftsmanship. Both were
instilled in her by her father as she grew up in Alaska and Santa Rosa.
He started her biking to school and she got hooked on that mode of
transportation. More importantly, he taught her how to make things for
herself, something he’d learned from his own father.

“My Dad took
me under his wing and taught me everything he knew,” said Carter, who
“borrowed” her grandfather’s knife to carve a willow ptarmigan when she
was just 5. “Dad said it was very well-proportioned, but I got in
trouble for using Grandpa’s knife. I didn’t cut myself, which was
amazing.”

He taught her how to run a metal fabricating mill, and
to weld and rivet. He showed her “how not to just survive in the
wilderness, but to thrive.” He also introduced her to mountaineering,
which became a life-long pursuit.

Later she learned about the
Scandinavian concept of “Saami Sloyd,” which in Swedish means to craft
and make practical things. At that point, Carter writes in a brief
biography, “there was no turning back and it meshed so well” with what
her father taught her. “The Saami people are the indigenous native
reindeer herders of Sweden. Everything they make is of the forest … I
will practice and perfect Sloyd until the day I die.”

Now 50,
Carter has spent her life making things: wooden cooking implements,
fishing rods and gear for mountaineering and other outdoor pursuits,
pressurized alcohol stoves and wood gas stoves, knives and axes crafted
from stone and bone, sleeping bags, tents and clothing. And bicycle
frames.

Which brings us back to her latest two-wheel creation. Its
features include a leather saddle “made by a little 95-year-old Italian
gentleman,” lugs made from hemp fiber canvas set with a soy-based
marine resin like boat-builders use, and a cut-to-fit seat mast that is
not adjustable but which adds to “an extremely strong and explosively
fast bike frame.”

“Two hundred years from now that bike will still be rideable,” said Carter.

To learn more about her creations, check out Elizabeth Carter on Facebook.

Reach Laura Wiens at
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AT THE MUSEUM

The Gallery of Arts & Culture is now open seven days a week, 10 a.m.–6 p.m. every day except Sunday, noon–6.

The works of more than 40 local artists are currently on display.

A Chamber of Commerce mixer will be held there Thursday from 5:30 to 7 p.m., featuring live music and refreshments.